Building a successful paper notebook production business
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- Category: SME toolkit
- Written by with Bridget Olotu
- Hits: 2048
Paper Notebook Production business is simply the business of printing and providing exercise books to school children and all classes of people, who do some form of writing every now and then. For instance, some of you might have paused your writing to read this article or might be planning to do some form of writing after now.
• Start-up cost as low as N10 million or more depending on the size of investment. Can be jointly carried out with other forms of businesses as we shall later on see
• Potential first year earnings: N35 million
• Breakeven time from initial investment: very rapid (can be between 2 to 5 years)
• Future growth potential: very high
• Dynamic, sustainable business
• Possible for Small business or Cooperative-based organisations
• Not much staffing required especially at the beginning.
Notebook Production business provides you access to sell writing materials to school children for as long as human civilisation exists. As long as there are schools and will continue to be schools, you are going to be having a captive market for your products. In addition, as long as human civilisation permits reading and writing, two of the greatest and most important activities since the dawn of civilisation, your business will continue to be relevant and sustainable. Even in a paperless economy, where information is increasingly being computerised and digitalised, notebooks or exercise books will continue to play a frontline role as materials for penning or pencilling our thoughts, ideas, lessons learnt, assignments, homework, lectures, sermons, instructions, business issues, to-do lists, articles, etc. If well managed, this business can make you a billionaire, or in the least, a multi-millionaire.
What are Notebooks?
A Notebook (also called version book or in Ireland, a copy book) is a form of exercise book that is used in schools to copy down schoolwork and notes. A notebook (also notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, legal pad, etc) is a book, made of paper or computer based, of which various uses can be made, including writing, drawing, and scrapbooking. Although being heavily digitalised and computerised, paper notebooks will be around for many more years to come to meet the writing needs of our people.
As a writer and management consultant, I know what amount of writing I do every year. Although most of my writing is done through the aid of a laptop, it does not preclude the use of exercise books. Similarly, every term, I have to buy new notebooks for my children or pay their school to supply customised ones for their class work. The other day, a colleague of mine bought a pack of 25 notebooks to keep in his house just to write and for his postgraduate classes. Recently, he has exhausted the ones he bought and wants to buy some more. What I have tried to do from these typical examples is to show you that the business of notebook production is one business that has come to stay as long as we would be reading, writing, attending classes, and as long as there’d be schools and institutions of higher learning, religious institutions, businesses, and so on.
Types of Paper Notebooks
1. A5-sized general notebooks. The general notebook is the regular type we all have used at one point or the other in our lives. It usually comes in quarto A5 size and is the favourite for primary, secondary and even tertiary students and virtually everybody. It comes in different sizes: 20, 40, 60 and 80 leaves.
2. Specialised Notebooks. There are also notebooks that are used for specialised purposes like solving Mathematical questions, Technical Drawing, Fine Arts, Statistics, Biology, Physics and Chemistry and even more professional ones used by surveyors, accountants/bookkeepers, etc.
3. Higher Education Notebooks. These notebooks are in the A4 or A5 sizes and are mostly used by students of Secondary and Tertiary institutions. They are longer than the general type, have more leaves, some even are hard backs and they are a little more expensive than the general type.
4. Jotters. You have various jotters being sold in the market today - some are like booklets, while others are big and wide and colourful. Some others are small and bland with barely any attractive colours.
5. Notebooks for Other Purposes. There are materials that are notebooks in nature because they are made for note taking. In this category, you’ll find, diaries, sermon notes, graph books, science notebooks, composition notebooks, handwriting notebooks, writing pads, A4 copier paper/office printing paper, and many others.
Notebook Production Business
There are many entry points into this business. You can be a merchant, buying and selling these notebooks; you can be a printer without a printing office or production outfit. In this case, you only get your chosen designs drawn up by a graphic artist and then take these drawings to a printer to have your notebooks printed for you. You can also have a printing/production outfit with all the equipment needed to start and run this business. Each one has its disadvantages and obvious merits. But I’ll briefly focus on those interested in going into this business without a printing outfit and those going into it who intend to have the required machines to work with.
Unique Selling Points in This Business
As you have seen, this business is wide and all-encompassing. But let’s take for example, you want to produce the general type notebooks of 20, 40, 60 and 80 leaves. You need to mind the following:
1. The paper and print quality of your final product
2. The nature of the back, i.e. is it hard or soft back?
3. Colour is very important. Colourful notebooks are in vogue any day.
4. Information on the notebooks. Most smart producers of notebooks tend to include such information as States And Capitals In Nigeria, Times Table, Metrics and Measurements, Poems, Quotes, and recently, some smarter producers are exploiting the frenzied love of Nigerians for football and foreign leagues by putting information on known stars and clubs on the backside of notebooks. School children are falling head over heels to have a copy of such notebooks where they can have unhindered access to their beloved players and clubs. In fact, as I write, many Nollywood stars don the faces of our notebooks and do school children go for these notebooks? You can say that again!
5. Price is another thing that can use to separate your notebooks from the rest.
Technical Requirements
For those interested in getting the machines for the Notebook Production business, machines can be sourced from India or China or even locally in Nigeria. Depending on the size of your investment and vision, and your anticipated production line, between N5 million to N200 million, you can put together what you need to start off your business. But whatever investment you are making must be hinged on the market demand of the product you intend producing and this you can get by doing some market survey, feasibility, business planning and all that.
Income Expectations
Now, because I live in Lagos, and know Lagos too well, I like using Lagos as the basis for my financial calculations. Bear with me on this. As Nigerians, wherever you live, you can sell your products in any part of the country as long as it is legitimate and does not infringe on the rights of others. There are about 6 million estimated primary and secondary school children in Lagos. For instance, if the average number of notebooks each child uses each term is 8, this means about 25 notebooks a year. Now if the average cost of these notebooks is just N30, that means a child in Lagos spends N750 on notebooks annually. The effective demand for notebooks yearly is therefore put at N4.5 billion. Imagine you capture one per cent of this business. We would be talking about N45 million business every year. We have not factored in the notebooks bought by those in tertiary institutions, professionals, writers and other adults. For all you care, this business might be worth three times more in Lagos. Besides, this is just one category. We have not factored in other products.
What is the income limit in this business?
As in most businesses, in the notebook production business, you determine the income you earn. Your marketing strategy/plan has to be tight and right. It’s important you convey your vision to your workers. You must have a robust, solid but flexible business architecture that straddles the entire business providing you with answers and solutions to the needs in the marketplace so you can earn the loyalty and business of your customers. For those who intend to invest so much into this business, without some form of planning done by a professional, you might be courting business disaster.
Articles
Building a successful paper notebook production business
Category: SME toolkit Written by with Bridget Olotu Hits: 2048
Paper Notebook Production business is simply the business of printing and providing exercise books to school children and all classes of people, who do some form of writing every now and then. For instance, some of you might have paused your writing to read this article or might be planning to do some form of writing after now.
• Start-up cost as low as N10 million or more depending on the size of investment. Can be jointly carried out with other forms of businesses as we shall later on see
• Potential first year earnings: N35 million
• Breakeven time from initial investment: very rapid (can be between 2 to 5 years)
• Future growth potential: very high
• Dynamic, sustainable business
• Possible for Small business or Cooperative-based organisations
• Not much staffing required especially at the beginning.
Notebook Production business provides you access to sell writing materials to school children for as long as human civilisation exists. As long as there are schools and will continue to be schools, you are going to be having a captive market for your products. In addition, as long as human civilisation permits reading and writing, two of the greatest and most important activities since the dawn of civilisation, your business will continue to be relevant and sustainable. Even in a paperless economy, where information is increasingly being computerised and digitalised, notebooks or exercise books will continue to play a frontline role as materials for penning or pencilling our thoughts, ideas, lessons learnt, assignments, homework, lectures, sermons, instructions, business issues, to-do lists, articles, etc. If well managed, this business can make you a billionaire, or in the least, a multi-millionaire.
What are Notebooks?
A Notebook (also called version book or in Ireland, a copy book) is a form of exercise book that is used in schools to copy down schoolwork and notes. A notebook (also notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, legal pad, etc) is a book, made of paper or computer based, of which various uses can be made, including writing, drawing, and scrapbooking. Although being heavily digitalised and computerised, paper notebooks will be around for many more years to come to meet the writing needs of our people.
As a writer and management consultant, I know what amount of writing I do every year. Although most of my writing is done through the aid of a laptop, it does not preclude the use of exercise books. Similarly, every term, I have to buy new notebooks for my children or pay their school to supply customised ones for their class work. The other day, a colleague of mine bought a pack of 25 notebooks to keep in his house just to write and for his postgraduate classes. Recently, he has exhausted the ones he bought and wants to buy some more. What I have tried to do from these typical examples is to show you that the business of notebook production is one business that has come to stay as long as we would be reading, writing, attending classes, and as long as there’d be schools and institutions of higher learning, religious institutions, businesses, and so on.
Types of Paper Notebooks
1. A5-sized general notebooks. The general notebook is the regular type we all have used at one point or the other in our lives. It usually comes in quarto A5 size and is the favourite for primary, secondary and even tertiary students and virtually everybody. It comes in different sizes: 20, 40, 60 and 80 leaves.
2. Specialised Notebooks. There are also notebooks that are used for specialised purposes like solving Mathematical questions, Technical Drawing, Fine Arts, Statistics, Biology, Physics and Chemistry and even more professional ones used by surveyors, accountants/bookkeepers, etc.
3. Higher Education Notebooks. These notebooks are in the A4 or A5 sizes and are mostly used by students of Secondary and Tertiary institutions. They are longer than the general type, have more leaves, some even are hard backs and they are a little more expensive than the general type.
4. Jotters. You have various jotters being sold in the market today - some are like booklets, while others are big and wide and colourful. Some others are small and bland with barely any attractive colours.
5. Notebooks for Other Purposes. There are materials that are notebooks in nature because they are made for note taking. In this category, you’ll find, diaries, sermon notes, graph books, science notebooks, composition notebooks, handwriting notebooks, writing pads, A4 copier paper/office printing paper, and many others.
Notebook Production Business
There are many entry points into this business. You can be a merchant, buying and selling these notebooks; you can be a printer without a printing office or production outfit. In this case, you only get your chosen designs drawn up by a graphic artist and then take these drawings to a printer to have your notebooks printed for you. You can also have a printing/production outfit with all the equipment needed to start and run this business. Each one has its disadvantages and obvious merits. But I’ll briefly focus on those interested in going into this business without a printing outfit and those going into it who intend to have the required machines to work with.
Unique Selling Points in This Business
As you have seen, this business is wide and all-encompassing. But let’s take for example, you want to produce the general type notebooks of 20, 40, 60 and 80 leaves. You need to mind the following:
1. The paper and print quality of your final product
2. The nature of the back, i.e. is it hard or soft back?
3. Colour is very important. Colourful notebooks are in vogue any day.
4. Information on the notebooks. Most smart producers of notebooks tend to include such information as States And Capitals In Nigeria, Times Table, Metrics and Measurements, Poems, Quotes, and recently, some smarter producers are exploiting the frenzied love of Nigerians for football and foreign leagues by putting information on known stars and clubs on the backside of notebooks. School children are falling head over heels to have a copy of such notebooks where they can have unhindered access to their beloved players and clubs. In fact, as I write, many Nollywood stars don the faces of our notebooks and do school children go for these notebooks? You can say that again!
5. Price is another thing that can use to separate your notebooks from the rest.
Technical Requirements
For those interested in getting the machines for the Notebook Production business, machines can be sourced from India or China or even locally in Nigeria. Depending on the size of your investment and vision, and your anticipated production line, between N5 million to N200 million, you can put together what you need to start off your business. But whatever investment you are making must be hinged on the market demand of the product you intend producing and this you can get by doing some market survey, feasibility, business planning and all that.
Income Expectations
Now, because I live in Lagos, and know Lagos too well, I like using Lagos as the basis for my financial calculations. Bear with me on this. As Nigerians, wherever you live, you can sell your products in any part of the country as long as it is legitimate and does not infringe on the rights of others. There are about 6 million estimated primary and secondary school children in Lagos. For instance, if the average number of notebooks each child uses each term is 8, this means about 25 notebooks a year. Now if the average cost of these notebooks is just N30, that means a child in Lagos spends N750 on notebooks annually. The effective demand for notebooks yearly is therefore put at N4.5 billion. Imagine you capture one per cent of this business. We would be talking about N45 million business every year. We have not factored in the notebooks bought by those in tertiary institutions, professionals, writers and other adults. For all you care, this business might be worth three times more in Lagos. Besides, this is just one category. We have not factored in other products.
What is the income limit in this business?
As in most businesses, in the notebook production business, you determine the income you earn. Your marketing strategy/plan has to be tight and right. It’s important you convey your vision to your workers. You must have a robust, solid but flexible business architecture that straddles the entire business providing you with answers and solutions to the needs in the marketplace so you can earn the loyalty and business of your customers. For those who intend to invest so much into this business, without some form of planning done by a professional, you might be courting business disaster.